Frankly, I think the issue is a no brainer. Of course we should legalize marijuana for medical purposes. This issue has gotten too much attention for too long, and there is not much to debate about. The whole idea is to make marijuana available for people who have chronic illnesses and treat their conditions without them having to serve a jail term for a drug that has been prescribed by their doctors. Although I'm against the use of marijuana for anything other than for treatment of medical conditions, our society has to think about the millions of people who suffer from chronic illnesses and how the drug has been proven to help them with their conditions.
Some say if the drug were to become legal it would be harmful to our communities. Others say people are already purchasing the drug on the streets, and since alcohol and cigarettes are legal why not legalize marijuana (Crowley, 2010). In our society literally millions of people use the drug for recreational purposes and have been for decades and that is not going to stop. We are using tax payer's money to house the non-violent drug users/dealers instead of using that money to go after real criminals. Our country spends $68 billion dollars per year on corrections, and one-third of those are serving time for non-violent crimes, and 47.5% of all arrests are marijuana-related (Klein, 2009). The United States has more pressing issues to deal with and this makes no sense to me.
Crowley, K. (2010, February 6). Medical marijuana dispute. Retrieved from http://www.fox11online.com/dpp/news/medical-marijuana-debate.
Klein, J. (2009, April 2). Why legalizing makes sense. Time Inc. Retrieved from http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1889021,00.html.
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